Background to the US at the first World Cup

Mindful of the rapid approach of the 2010 World Cup, the Philly Soccer Page begins a series looking back at each of the US team’s appearances in the tournament. We begin with a look at the background to the World Cup leading up to the inaugural tournament in 1930.

You can read more about US world Cup appearances in, 1930 (part 2), 1934, 1950, the 1950-1990 drought, 1990, 1994, 1998 (part 1), 1998 (part 2), 2002 (part 1), 2002 (part2) and 2006.

International soccer before FIFA and the World Cup

International soccer had been played at the Olympics beginning with the second games of the modern era in Paris in 1900. It was the first team sport allowed in the games, though for a time soccer featured at the games only as an exhibition sport.

The popularity of soccer in the Olympics led forward thinking people such as Robert Guerin to suggest the establishment of an organizing body to facilitate international play. At the time, the soccer nations of the world looked to England and the FA as the leading light of the game. When the FA proved to be slow in assuming the role of organizing world soccer, eight interested soccer associations from across Europe – Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and France -  took matters into their own hands and established FIFA, the Federation Internationale de Football Association on May 21 1904.

The creation of the World Cup

At first, rather than organize its own championship, FIFA was content to let soccer at the Olympics represent the world championship. Following the First World War, however, disputes over the inclusion of amateur versus professional players led to a revival of Guerin’s original idea of an “open” world championship. FIFA secretary Henri Delaunay had said in 1926,

Today international football can no longer be held within the confines of the Olympics, and many countries where professionalism is now recognized and organized cannot any longer be represented there by their best players.

Following the success of soccer at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, where it was the most popular sport, FIFA, led by Jules Rimet, moved to create the first World Cup, to be held in 1930. Because the World Cup would allow professional players to participate, the football associations of the British Isles, who still clung to the amateur idea in international competition, resigned from FIFA.

The five candidates to host the first World Cup were Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Uruguay. Uruguay, which had won the 1924 and 1928 Olympic gold medals and would be celebrating its 100th anniversary as a country in 1930 was selected as the host. That Uruguay offered to pay for the traveling and living expenses of each participating country and to build a new stadium surely helped.

The four countries that had not been selected to host the first World Cup refused to send teams to the tournament. Austria, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia also refused to send teams and for a time the relative lack of participation by European teams made it seem that the World Cup might be over before it had begun. Eventually, four European teams – Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia – made the trip to join Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, the United States and host country Uruguay.

A quick look at the background to the US team: the ASL, the USFA and the American Soccer Wars

Soccer in the US at the time of the the first World Cup was recovering from a jurisdictional dispute led on the one side by the professional American Soccer League (ASL) and the United States Football Association (USFA), as the United States Soccer Federation was then known. This dispute is commonly referred to as the American Soccer War.

The formation of the first ASL in 1921 with teams from the National Association Football League and the Southern New England Soccer League had resulted in professional teams backed by wealthy investors that could attract and pay for the best soccer talent in America. The league was also able to attract players from European leagues with offers of pay greater than what they could hope to earn at home as well as tours by top European clubs. For a time, the ASL was second only to Major League Baseball as the most popular professional sport in the US.

But the success of the ASL led to disputes with the governing body of US soccer, the USFA, over the status of international players who had broken contracts in their native countries to play in the ASL (despite the fact that the ASL appealed for assistance from the USFA when American players broke their contracts to play in Europe) and the sharing of profits from exhibition matches with foreign clubs with the association, some of which enjoyed attendance of 30,000 or more.

The ASL also took the view that participation in the US Challenge Cup (now known as the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup), which included both professional and amateur clubs, interfered with money-making ASL matches, and voted to no longer participate in the Cup competition. The view was not shared by all ASL clubs and some of the leading clubs, including Bethlehem Steel FC, decided to leave the ASL and, with the help of the USFA, formed the Eastern Professional Soccer League. When the ASL voted to suspended and fine the breakaway clubs, the USFA was forced to assert its authority over the American professional game and the USFA suspended the ASL. Soon other leagues, including the Southern New York Football Association, joined the ASL in challenging the USFA.

The position of the breakaway leagues led by the ASL began to be eroded when the Scottish FA, its stature at the time second perhaps only to the English FA, recognized the authority of the USFA as the preeminent authority of American soccer. Finally, in October, 1929, the various parties in the dispute were able to agree to recognize the authority of the USFA. But the damage to the professional game – along with the growing hardships of the Great Depression -  had been done: financial backers withdrew their support of clubs and foreign players returned to play in their home countries. The first ASL folded in 1933.

But the importance of the ASL to the 1930 US World Cup squad would be undeniable. The coach, Robert Millar, who had played for Tacony and Bethlehem Steel, the trainer, Jock Coll, and eleven of the players chosen for the US squad, came from ASL teams.